randomosity

I just happened to take a quick peek at the camera stats at Flickr today. I had uploaded and explored this data on ManyEyes a years or so ago and perhaps not surprisingly noted that Canon dominated the point-and-shoot market and that Nikon and Canon were battling for dominance in the DSLR market…all according to Flickr postings which may create some skew. Intriguingly when I took a quick look at the posting numbers by camera today, there’s something else very interesting happening: fewer people seem to be using the most popular camera models. Is the market diversifying on a model or manufacturer basis?
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This one could also be called…another great time waster…but it is well done. FlickrVision uses streaming photo posts from Flickr that have locational references. It displays geo-referenced popups of the images as they are posted to Flickr. Hovering over a popup will display a large image of that photo for appreciation. If you are looking for the kooky, eclectic, or for the occasional flash of brilliance, check out the site. rather like StumbleUpon with a geo-twist.

(if this image is just a pretty palace, click refresh to reload the animated gif and enjoy a quick look at the rebuilding of the schloss)

I am always both fascinated and charmed to see an older building lovingly restored and doubly so when its role is thoughtfully reconsidered and creatively re-purposed. The magnificent ducal place in Braunschweig has been carefully reconstructed and redeveloped as part of a shopping arcade in the city centre. The palace itself was torn down in 1960 following years of gradual disintegration and bomb damage during the WWII that left much of the city centre devastated. Although remnants of the old palace were used in the reconstruction begun in 2005, the bulk of the construction material is new. Despite this, the effect overall effect of the reconstruction is gorgeous, and tribute to the craftsmanship of those involved. There have been a number of critics that feel that such a building should only be used as museum or a public non-commercial space. I heartily disagree.

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I happened to stumble upon (literally - I was using the new StumbleThrough feature of StumbleUpon) this wonderful Flickr collection. In this set, Michael Hughes captures a variety of popular tourist sites and superimposes souvenirs in photo in situ. What a neat concept. I am sure this opens up all sorts of wonderful questions for the representationalists…it reverses the normal memory process, by physically inserting memory into the present scene to create a representation of memory itself. Its almost a form of memory feedback. In this case, the kischier the better and possibly the less realistic the initial imposed memory object, the more memorable the subsequent artifact actually becomes. Its kind of twisting truth in on itself. I’ll have to think about this one some more.
The photographers idea (and there may have actually been earlier inspiration for him) has sparked a whole series of inspired works in Flickr. Searching for Michael Hughes finds a variety of pics his concept has inspired.

I have been downloading HDR images over the past few months and using them as desktop images because they are so evocative. I was fascinated by this digital processing technique and although I did find some good technical explanations about how the effect was achieved, I didn’t quite get it. Until I found this fine little tutorial from Trey Ratcliff. He’s done a great job of explaining both the technicalities as well as providing some easy to follow tutorials.
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